


wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

by perfectlight



Series: what is unseen is eternal [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I am finding myself increasingly incapable of writing happy things, Library Fix-It, except not at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlight/pseuds/perfectlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was almost as though there was a fuzziness to River’s edges – as though she was a projection, or a ghost, and the Doctor tried to hold back the fear pounding in his hearts, seeping through his veins: that some vital part of his River had been left in the Library, that something had been lost and could never be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041394) by [whynothulk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whynothulk/pseuds/whynothulk)



_There is a time to live, and a time to sleep_.

 

But not this time. Well, he’d always _intended_ to save her, ever since he learned enough about River Song to know she could never be happy in an idyllic computer world filled with books. She’d manage, of course, for his sake, she’d go on, but she wouldn’t want to. And the Doctor tried, he really did, came up with plans and counter-plans and thought until his brain nearly burst; but it wasn’t until he lost Clara that the Doctor knew he would have to _do_ something.

 

It was horrible, really, the simplicity with which his impossible girl was gone. There was an invasion, a slight paradox, and because she was _Clara_ she put his life before hers and suddenly she had been gone and he had known – there was nothing to be done. And just as he had a hundred, a thousand it felt, times before, he stepped into his box and flew away, and wished he could fade into the blackness.

 

The Doctor lost them all, eventually. But River – River, he had saved. Put away on a shelf in the Library to come back to _sometime, somehow_ , and he knew, then, that River was the only light he could bear having now, the only light he knew wouldn’t be snuffed out so easily as the others. 

 

He had to save her. He couldn’t be alone anymore – couldn’t hold back the weight of the years and the shadows much longer. He wouldn’t be the Doctor if he could.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, it was easy. The Doctor hated himself all over again for not _trying_ half a century earlier – a flash of his sonic and some genetic manipulation techniques borrowed from a lost civilization, a piece of duct tape and a bit of luck, and then there she was, _River_ , his River, standing with her curls and a look of utter bafflement he’d never before seen on her face with wisps of smoke curling from her fingertips, in his TARDIS, right in front of him. It was almost too good to be true and the Doctor wanted to kiss her or cry or fly apart and he wasn’t quite sure how to put any of that into words, so he managed to whisper, “ _River_.”

 

She looked at him with wide eyes, and there was something there, some shadow, that made uneasiness coil in the Doctor’s stomach; their color, green and blue and he never _could_ quite decide what precise shade her eyes were, didn’t seem to be quite as vibrant as he remembered. River was pale, lips parted in shock, and her voice was choked and raspy as she said his name. 

 

“You’re here,” the Doctor said, stupidly; one hand reached up to cradle her cheek. The skin was cold, almost enough to make him flinch, but he’d waited _so long_ for this and once he’d started he couldn’t keep himself from touching her. “You’re here, you’re really here, River–”

 

River hardly seemed to be breathing; her hand trailed up to cover his. “How – how is this possible? How can I be here? I didn’t – my body – Doctor, it _burned_ –”

 

“I know,” and fumblingly, excitedly, he rambles out how he did it, how _he saved River_ , he can hardly believe it – River barely seems to blink as he does, and there is something, something worrying him, though he can’t quite tell what it is – she doesn’t really move, doesn’t blink, and her voice is too quiet, and it’s almost as though she’s not really _here_.

 

“I can’t believe this,” whispered River, and then she finally seems to notice the pale, shadowed console room around them. “You changed the desktop.”

 

And then the Doctor was off again, leading River by the hand and showing he all the things that are new and telling her in words that tumble and rush about everything that has happened and it seems that with every breath he let out another _I missed you_ , _I love you_ , because he never _did_ say it and now that he can he doesn’t think he’ll ever _stop_.

 

But even as River, still seemingly shell-shocked, pale and hushed, stared around at the new TARDIS, listened quietly to stories of Clara and paradoxes and worlds saved and people lost, curled her fingers around his own, there is something shadowed and worried in the back of the Doctor’s mind, sitting there: something he himself had said, something he doesn’t want to remember.

 

_You are an echo, River. You should have faded by now._

 

Something he’d told River when she was still in that _stupid_ Library – but no. The Doctor wouldn’t believe it, _couldn’t_ believe it, after everything. River was _here_ and nothing about her had changed and he was going to make everything all right again.

 

* * *

 

The first signs even the Doctor can’t ignore come almost a week after River returned. Everything was new and everything was the same and it was _wonderful_ ; the Doctor kept telling himself so, kept a constant mantra in the back of his head to cover up the shadows and whispers of the worry. He had held her after so long, River had told him about life in the datacore and how glad she was to be back, the Doctor had most certainly _not_ cried when he kissed her for the first time, but all along he couldn’t help but feel that the happiness, the _newness_ , was entirely one-sided – that he was the only one about to fray and shred from utter _ecstasy_ at everything that had happened.

 

Not that River wasn’t _happy_ ; she beamed and kissed him back and stroked the walls of the TARDIS, listening with a soft little smile to the hum of the ship. “I’ve missed this,” she said, and the Doctor took more comfort in that than he hoped showed on his face – River had missed the TARDIS, River had missed _him_ , now that she was back everything could be all right again.

 

But there was something missing, something lacking, some spark of _River_ that he couldn't find. Maybe he was unused to not having a wink and a spoiler thrown at him every few minutes, but some vibrancy seemed to be gone from River’s speech, which was now soft and a little sleepy; some echo was in her laughter, she always took a little too long to reply, a little too long to notice things, she was a little too forgetful. It was almost as though there was a fuzziness to River’s edges – as though she was a projection, or a ghost, and the Doctor tried to hold back the fear pounding in his hearts, seeping through his veins: that some vital part of his River had been left in the Library, that something had been lost and could never be found.

 

So he held her and _held her_ and told her everything he never had, and they laughed and made love and both agreed that they were glad there were no more spoilers – and it was only after a week that the Doctor realized they hadn’t even left the TARDIS, that River hadn’t asked to see anything or anyone.

 

It was as if she hadn’t even thought of it.

 

* * *

 

“Are you happy, River?” the Doctor asked abruptly one morning, the sheets cool around their legs and his hand wreathed in her curls. 

 

She looked up at him, that familiar smile tugging on the ends of her lips. “Oh, sweetie. You know that I am.”

 

“No, I mean–” He turned so he could face her, and they were nose-to-nose, skin brushing. “Happy _here_. On the TARDIS, just us. Because you know – we can still go anywhere, see anything, all of time and space. That hasn’t changed.”  


There was a slight furrowing of her eyebrows that made the Doctor nervous – it really did look as though the thought was occurring to her for the first time. “Oh,” said River, tone too light, “no, I am. I don’t mind staying here. I like it, actually.”

 

The Doctor shoves away the wildly rising thought that _that is not his River_ because River, before, would have dragged him off the TARDIS long before and into some sort of intergalactic civil war and shot something before he could protest; _the Doctor_ was always the one who dithered and fretted and wanted to stay in, wanted to keep River on the TARDIS as long as he could because he knew _, he knew_ , there was a countdown.

 

But almost two thousand years and he still didn’t know how to put any of that into words, so he swallowed the feeling and kissed her so he didn’t have to say anything.

 

* * *

 

It’s when he finds her sitting and staring at nothing that the Doctor _knows_ without a shadow of a doubt that something is very, very wrong.

 

“Penny for your thoughts?” he calls jovially, and even though he had approached on silent footsteps and come up behind her (some tiny part of him _hoping_ she would react, be startled), River only turned and looked up at him, expressionless.

 

“I wasn’t really thinking about anything,” she said, too quietly, and the Doctor felt his hearts twisting.

“Do you want to go for tea?” he asked, kneeling down to smile brightly at her, too brightly. By now, he can picture River, before, frowning at him and asking what _his_ problem was and why he was being so bloody cheery. “We can go back to that place you loved in the Andromeda galaxy in 2357 – the one with the frankly frightening china dolls on the shelves, remember?” River would always tease him about the glares he sent askance to the utterly _terrifying_ dolls with their Cheshire grins and too-wide eyes and sculpted faces; he always half-expected them to rise up on their little china legs and begin massacring the various species taking tea in the shop, and kept his sonic close at hand for just such an occurrence. 

 

Too late, the Doctor realized he spoke in the past tense – _that place you loved_.

 

But River, after a moment, shook her head. “No, but thank you, sweetie. We have tea here, don’t we?” A smile, then she arose, squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll go make some now.”

 

River. Voluntarily making him tea rather than throwing the teapot towards his shoulder like she had on their fourteenth honeymoon – the one where they’d ended up on that planet with flesh-eating insects and hadn’t _that_ been an interesting date. But something else was bothering him, and a second of scrabbling in his old mind brought it up: _no, but thank you, sweetie_. The Doctor frowned. That was wrong. That wasn’t – that just wasn’t _River_.

 

He found he missed the slaps.

 

* * *

 

She slept more than she had before, human plus and all that, not that the Doctor minded at first – he made excuses to himself, she’s adjusting to being back in a body and such. He loved the feeling of River curled against him, of holding her close and thinking _nothing will take you from me ever again_. He loved her hair tickling his nose and making him choke down sneezes so as not to wake her, loved the way her fingers twitched and eyelashes fluttered as she dreamed. Occasionally she projected, even, and he saw flashes of the Library – Charlotte and River’s team, grass and a slowly flowing river. 

 

It was after weeks of such flashes of dreams that the Doctor wondered why she never dreamed of anything but. It unnerved him, frightened him – he knew she didn’t miss being there, knew she remembered her life before, but there was something – something not right. The Library still had a hold on River, or was still a part of River, and whatever it was it made the Doctor feel ill to think about.

 

He had not, he had not, _he had not_ come all this way and lost so much only to lose River when he’d just gotten her back.

And yet he didn't know what he could do.

 

* * *

 

_You are an echo, River_.

 

She kissed him softly, as though she were barely there; when she laughed, it was short and soft, more of an exhalation than anything else. It was the little things – the slow, slow beats of her heart and faded colours of her eyes, the long nights sleeping and the loose way she held his hand, that she didn’t even comment when she saw her gun still resting on her nightstand where she’d left it, that she never asked him questions, only listened when he spoke – rather than the large things – that they never did leave the TARDIS because River never wanted to, that River’s memories seemed to float away from her when she sought them, that one morning she couldn’t remember why her name was also Melody and _didn’t seem to be bothered_ – that made the Doctor realize, fully and numbingly, in tune to the pounding beats of his hearts, what he had never wanted to know:

 

The River he had brought back had faded, colours washed out in the computer world he’d forced her into, and the memory of her he’d saved into this body was just that, a memory.

 

And because there was nothing to be done, he let the tears slide from his eyes and didn’t react because she didn’t either, he felt nothingness creep towards him and welcomed it, he sank into the pain because he knew, now, that it was all he could ever keep.

 

_You should have faded by now._

 

She had, the Doctor knew. She had.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been planning on writing a lovely happy little fic to compensate for the pain of The Name of the Doctor for awhile, and last night it was raining harder than the tears of fandoms and I was lying awake and thinking about fix-it fics when suddenly a line from TNotD popped into my head and I thought, _what if the Doctor saves River, but she_ is _only an echo?_. So here is this little thing. Fluff continues to really not be my area.
> 
> The title is from the book of Jude, verse 1:13b.


End file.
